Monday, March 28, 2011

From Sweet Romance to a Murdering Smartass: One Writer’s Journey

We are honored to have my friend and fellow author Christie Craig here today to talk about her new releases and tell us how she got to this stage in her career and signed a BIG deal with St. Martins Press with her new YA series. Not only is Christie laugh-out-loud funny, but she's got some great giveaways, including a Kindle! So with no further ado, here's Christie.

Years ago, in another life, I wrote and published a Silhouette Romance. It was a sweet story with wholesome characters, and I’m proud of that book. However, after having some difficulties selling another book, I put novel writing on the back burner and focused on my photojournalism career. I took pictures that appeared on the covers of national magazines, and I wrote nonfiction, wrote words to feed knowledge-hungry individuals. I wrote about China, about the homeless, about calligraphy, about horny felines, window fashions, skunks, tomato horn worms, ugly shoes, and bad moles.

Basically, if an editor would pay for it, I wrote it. And after about an eight-year sabbatical from writing novels, and too many years of writing about things other people thought were important—like tomato horn worms—I suddenly had an uncontrollable urge not to die a one-book wonder. I wanted to write my own thing, to write my own story as it played across the screen of my mind.

Now the thing you have to know about me is that when I really get a bee in my bonnet,I don’t play around. I announced my intentions to my husband, to my kids, my friends and to the innocent bystander behind me in the grocery store line. I even announced it to my gynecologist, during a pap smear. I, Christie Craig, was going to write, sell, and publish another book even if I had to kill somebody to accomplish it.

While I didn’t realize it at the time, that’s exactly what it would take to make my dream come true--killing someone. Well, it wasn’t just one person, there were several. And I admit when I whacked my first person, I suffered terribly. My heart ached and I cried, and guilt sat on my shoulders like a five-hundred-pound gorilla. But as soon as I knocked off the gorilla and washed the imaginary blood off my hands, and I reread my deadly scene, I had an epiphany: Nothing can liven up a party or a plot like a dead body. I really found my mystery-suspense voice and that’s when I sold my books.

Since then, suspense, mystery and murder are as prevalent in my work as flies are on a bad banana. Yes, there’s romance, and lots of humor, but to be honest, I’m not sure I can write a story without having one person kick the bucket. Or at least having someone try to kick someone else’s bucket. Let’s face it, death or someone facing death, just adds a zing to a manuscript. It can be more of a zinger than even a hot sex scene.

Now since then, I’ve sort of gotten creative on how I kill people, or how I keep my characters from being killed by other people. Of course, I’ve used the typical guns, knives, and an occasional vehicle—from a Cadillac to a Saturn. But I’ve also gotten creative and threatened people with toilet plungers, the tank top of the back of a toilet, a tampon, and an egg beater. Hey...it just keeps things interesting.

And when I was approached to write a young adult, my first question was: will I still be able to kill people, because I’m good at that?

The editor assured me that I could kill people, bring them back to life, and then kill them again if I wanted to—this was going to be a paranormal. Another thing she told me was I wasn’t going to have to stop being a smartass. As a matter of fact, she said the reason she wanted me to write a young adult was because I was a smartass. Dag-blast it, I didn’t even know I was a smartass. Yeah, I had a few zingers here and there but . . . Right then, I added being a smartass to my list of talents. Hey…you take what you can get.

Writing young adult has been a blast. If you are familiar with my Christie Craig books, you’ll still see some of my smartass humor in my Shadow Falls series for St. Martin’s Griffin. And someone is either gonna die, or come close to dying, and while these books might not have as much sex, you’ll find plenty of sexual tension.

In a nut shell, Born at Midnight, the first book in my new Shadow Falls series under my new pseudonym C.C. Hunter, is about young girl who has spent sixteen years trying to figure out who she is, only to discover she doesn’t know what she is. As the tagline of the book says: It’s not your average identity crisis. Kylie Galen is about to go on an adventure of self-discovery, love and friendship. There just happens to be some vampires, shape-shifters, werewolves, faes and a few witches around, too. And when she’s told she’s one of them, but they don’t have a friggin’ clue what she is, well her life pretty much goes to hell in a hand basket. Trying to figure out what she is is a real mindbender.

Personally, I think identity crises aren’t just something that happens to women in their teens. Heck, with each new stage of life, I find myself reevaluating--trying to reinvent myself with a new wardrobe, hair cut, or hair color. And when I look at the woman in the mirror, sometimes I just stare at her trying to figure out who the heck she really is. Life is a journey of self discovery. It’s so difficult at times it can drive a person to being a smartass and a murderer on paper. Not that I’m complaining, those are my talents.

So there you have it, how I went from sweet romance to being a murdering smartass who also writes YA. Ahh, but it’s been a good journey. I hope some of you will give Born at Midnight a try. You can even snag my free short story, Turned at Dark. It’s Della’s story and it introduces the Shadow Falls series. You can also read the first three chapters of Born at Midnight, too. All you have to do is visit my Born at Midnight page at Macmillan on March 15th – Born at Midnight Page. Or you can download a free eBook copy of Turned at Dark at all major online retailers. The download also has the first three chapters of Born at Midnight on there as well.

To celebrate the release of Born at Midnight, I’m running a “Tweet my Book and Win a Kindle Contest” from March 22th through March 29th. The grand prize will be the Kindle but I’m also giving away copies of Born at Midnight, some Shadow Falls swag and ARCs of Awake at Dawn, which is scheduled to release in October. All the details will be at my blog beginning March 22nd – Blog. So, please drop by and help me tweet my book and you could win a Kindle!

Finally, for those of you waiting for my next Christie Craig book, it’s in the pipeline. Don’t Mess With Texas, the first book in my Hotter In Texas trilogy put out by Grand Central, will release August 23rd. And, yeah, my editor let me kill somebody in this one, too. In fact, the dead body shows up when . . .well, that would be telling too much. But trust me. It’s funny . . .in a smartass kind of way, I mean.

Thanks so much Liz for allowing me to visit with your readers. And I’d love to offer a free copy of Born at Midnight to one person who posts a comment and tells me a little about their own identity crisis. Or maybe about some of their talents in life. Come on, share a little.

32 comments:

Hey, Cozy, I screwed up and posted this a day early. Christie will be here tomorrow to comment.

As for my own identity crisis-- even though I'm not allowed to win the free book -- I chased romance for a lot of years until I realized that in every one of my stories, someone either died or something got blown up. Smart me finally quit entering romance contests where I always got dinged.

I'm also a smartass and so are my heroines. We ought to start a club, Christie--SAA!!

Love your post Christie. I can really see your humor come through here.As with you I also have a love for killing people, but I don't bring them back. Your choice of weapons is to say the least standard except-how in the world do you kill someone with a tampon. And what on earth, or under the earth is a bad mole?Well, that's it for now. I'm off to your blog to see if I can win a Kindle.

Thanks so much for stopping by and to Liz for letting me pop in and chat. A smartass club sounds like a good thing. LOL.

The tampon scene took place in my romance, Divorced, Desperate and Dating. Even funnier than the scene was doing my research...Asking a cop: Uh...what kind of gun has a barrel that is the same size as a super absorbent medium-sized tampon?

And hey, Lindsay, here's hoping those lottery gods are working in your favor.

I'll be out of pocket a bit this morning, but I will be back later. Keep those posts coming.

I got a good laugh from this interview. Your humor is great. I love humor, but I love mysteries and suspense and a good dead body does really liven up the party. I write a paranormal romance series and my editor is always complaining that I have too much suspense for a romance, so now I'm writing a cozy mystery as well. Thanks so much for sharing your journey with us. Oh, I LOVE the cover for Born at Midnight.

Great post!And, too, have been accused of being a smartass, to which I say--its better than being a dumbass.As for an identity crisis...I'm in one now. I, like Liz, thought I was a romance writer... but there was that whole "killing people thing" going on. So I moved to mysteries.Then I decided to design covers for ebooks... and Friday during a walk on the beach, I was knocked upside the head with... wait for it... yes! a YA paranormal idea. yep, we need a club.

Another fun post from you, Christie! I do read YAs, and yours sounds like one I'd love to read.

I think my identity crisis was last year, when I realized I was going to be an indie author instead of a NY published author. I had a big "ah" feeling, as if my unconscious was saying, "It's about time you listened to me."

OMG - this was a great post CC!!! I'm all up for a smartass club. And identity crisis?? Oh boy, I think I'm still trying to figure it out!

Way back when, I started what I thought was romantic suspense, until I fell in love with my villian and redeemed him in the end. At which point my agent said "You have to kill him." I struggled for DAYS, WEEKS even. I didn't know if I could. In my eyes he was a product of circumstance. He needed his story to be told, to find love....but no. I taped a sticky note to my monitor "Dante must die. You need to Kill him." so I went back through the story, made him quite nasty, and in the end I succeeded in killing him. I remember holding my breath through that final scene, through his last sputter of life. Dante died and I survived it. And it felt GOOOOOOD!!

But then I got sidetracked because every contest I entered I always got feedback my heroines were immature and sounded too young. And after getting sucked into 2 YA novels (freebies from a conference) I thought...maybe my heroines are immature for a reason. Maybe I should be writing YA!! But when I try to write YA, I kind of end up with middle grade. So I almost have to fool my mind into thinking I'm writing an adult story, in order to get the YA voice to come out. Crisis, remember?

But all the while that thrill of the kill has been in the back of my mind, waiting to be released. After Kari and Liz sold their cozies, they kept saying "you need to write one!" and so I did. And plotting that murder and framing those suspects couldn't be any more fun!

so..while I haven't quite figured out who I am, I'm having lots of fun figuring out who did it!

Your books sound fantastic! I"m putting them on my TBR list for sure and I'm checking out the previews. Thanks for a great monday morning post!

Oh, how cute this interview is. DQing myself from the Kindle, I own one Christie. Your books are hysterical. Thanks for the laughs. Now, I just gotta know, when you threaten someone with a tampon, how does that work ;) Thanks Mysteries & Margaritas.

I’m back. And it looks as if we are doing great. Thanks everyone for dropping by. Cassie, we suspense and suspense writers are good at knocking off people who annoy us. LOL.

Anita, I think the reason it took so long to break back into novel writer was because I wrote such a mix of genres. I was too romancy to be straight mystery, too humorous to be straight romantic suspense, too suspenseful to be regular contemporary romance. I told them to they could buy me and put in all the genres, but they didn’t fall for it. Finally they bought me just to stop me from submitting. And I was shelved in different places in some stores. But I think now I’m seen mostly as contemporary romance. But hey…I just wanted to tell the story as they came to me.

Donna, don’t tell anyone over at the Ship that I’m cheating on them. LOL. I have fun their last week.

Laura, if you are a smartass, you might belong in YA. LOL.

Edie, I hope you enjoy BAM. I have you book, Catitude downloaded on my computer, and I’m waiting to out from under deadline for some R&R time—reading and relaxation time.

Barbie Jo, Love the story. I saved a villain once in Divorced, Desperate and Deceived. Well, he wasn’t the real villain he just worked for the real villain. And the funny thing was I got more fan mail about him than I did the hero or heroine. And for sure, girl, it’s the journey that is the most important thing. Enjoy the heck out of it!!

Melanie, I like keeping people on their toes, too. LOL. And Donnell, that tampon was a great weapon. Think about it…If someone comes up to you and put an unloaded tampon to the back of your head and says…”Drop that weapon or I’ll splatter your brains all over that there wall,” would you think it was a tampon? LOL

I don't really have an identity crisis as such but I have in the past had to argue about my name! I was born in Jordan when my dad was working for a company out there and my mum went with him, the translator messed up and spelt it suZan instead of suSan, when I told a guy at work how my name was spelt he actually argued with me that that's not how you spell my name!?! I yelled at him that it was my name and I think I know how to spell it better then him! Lol! I have in the past gotten confused and thought I was a chipmunk, I started talking in a chipmonk pitch and couldn't stop, sadly I can't even blame it on helium!

I don't really have an identity crisis as such but I have in the past had to argue about my name! I was born in Jordan when my dad was working for a company out there and my mum went with him, the translator messed up and spelt it suZan instead of suSan, when I told a guy at work how my name was spelt he actually argued with me that that's not how you spell my name!?! I yelled at him that it was my name and I think I know how to spell it better then him! Lol! I have in the past gotten confused and thought I was a chipmunk, I started talking in a chipmonk pitch and couldn't stop, sadly I can't even blame it on helium!

People spell my real name, Christie, so many different ways that it's not funny. One time, I had newspaper do an article on me and they spelled it three different ways in the article. And, oh, my throat hurts thinking about talking like a chipmonk.

Lindsay, I say the vote sticks. LOL.

Barbara, when we finally accept our fate as being writers, it's a fine day. I hope you are meeting all your dreams.

I'm late to the party because I'm high on pain killers. Christie, I love your books. I have read them all. I busted a gut when you had the villain, turned semi-hero, and dumped the real villain in the port-a-potty with the note, "life's a bitch and then you die." Love, loved it! I don’t bother to read the blurb on the back of your books. If your name is on the front, the book goes home with me.